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What the case was about

PGMOL stands for Professional Game Match Officials Ltd, the body that supplies referees to football. The referees in question officiated individual matches on a part-time basis, most of them alongside full-time jobs elsewhere. They could withdraw from an appointment before a match, and PGMOL could cancel, in each case without any sanction. HMRC argued that each individual match engagement could amount to a contract of employment. The case took two separate decisions to resolve, and they answered two different questions.

The Supreme Court ruling: September 2024

The first question, and the only one the Supreme Court answered, was whether mutuality of obligation and control were even capable of existing within a single, short, cancellable engagement. In HMRC v PGMOL [2024] UKSC 29, the court held that they were. Mutual obligations arise from the moment an assignment is accepted, and a right to cancel without penalty does not negate mutuality while the contract is actually on foot. The same reasoning applied to control: PGMOL's oversight during a match engagement was capable of amounting to sufficient control, even without a traditional employer-employee relationship between fixtures.

This mattered because mutuality of obligation, often shortened to MOO, has long been a cornerstone of contractor defences. The familiar argument runs: there is no obligation on the client to offer me more work, and no obligation on me to accept it, so there is no mutuality, so I cannot be an employee. The Supreme Court narrowed that argument considerably. If mutuality can be satisfied within a single engagement, pointing to the gaps between engagements does much less work than it used to.

It is important to be precise about what the Supreme Court did not do. It did not decide that the referees were employees. It decided only that mutuality of obligation and control were capable of being satisfied on these facts, and it remitted the case to the First-tier Tribunal to weigh the overall picture under the third limb of the long-standing Ready Mixed Concrete (South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions (1968) test: whether the referees were, in substance, in business on their own account. The Supreme Court ruling was about which gate the case passed through, not the final verdict on those particular referees.

The First-tier Tribunal ruling: May 2026

That final verdict came a year and a half later. In PGMOL v HMRC [2026] UKFTT 654 (TC), released 1 May 2026, the First-tier Tribunal ruled that the referees were self-employed, not employees. HMRC confirmed it would not appeal, so the ruling stands as the end of the case.

The tribunal's reasoning centred on three points. First, the episodic nature of the engagements: each match was a standalone assignment with no obligation flowing from one to the next, and while the Supreme Court had already established that mutuality could exist within a single match, the tribunal found that this narrow, contract-by-contract mutuality did not add up to the sustained relationship characteristic of employment. Second, the tribunal drew a distinction between PGMOL's regulatory or gatekeeping control, refereeing standards, fitness requirements, disciplinary oversight, and the kind of day-to-day managerial control an employer exercises over how work is actually done. It found PGMOL's control was overwhelmingly of the former kind. Third, and weighing heavily in the tribunal's overall assessment, most referees held full-time employment elsewhere and were not economically dependent on their PGMOL income, undermining the idea that they were integrated into PGMOL's business as employees would be.

Reading the two rulings together

Tribunals have held two things that are both true at once, and the case only makes sense if you hold them together. The Supreme Court's 2024 ruling on mutuality and control was not overturned or narrowed by the 2026 tribunal decision. It still stands as the applicable test: mutuality and control can exist within a single engagement, even a short and cancellable one. That reasoning made the first two limbs of the test easier for HMRC to clear, and it remains good law for any case that follows.

What the First-tier Tribunal's ruling shows is that clearing those first two limbs is not the same as winning the case. The third limb, the holistic assessment of whether someone is genuinely in business on their own account, is still where finely balanced cases are decided, and it is still capable of producing a contractor win even after HMRC has satisfied mutuality and control. The referees won because of the episodic structure of their work, the non-managerial character of PGMOL's oversight, and their lack of economic dependency, not because mutuality or control failed HMRC's case.

What this means for your position

The practical shift is in where your strongest arguments now live, not in whether you have any. Defences built purely on technical clauses, a substitution clause that is never used, a no-mutuality clause, an over-reliance on the cancellable nature of short engagements, carry less weight than they did before 2024. Our explainer on mutuality of obligation goes deeper into how MOO works and why CEST has always handled it poorly. For how PGMOL fits within the current rules overall, see our IR35 rules 2026 guide.

What has grown in importance is the demonstrable reality of running a business, and the PGMOL tribunal ruling is a working example of what that looks like in practice: genuinely standalone engagements rather than a continuous relationship dressed up as separate contracts, control that is regulatory rather than managerial, and income that does not depend on any single engager. Multiple clients, real financial risk, your own equipment, and the ability to profit from how well you manage the work all sit in the same category. In other words, the question has moved from "can I point to a clause that breaks the test?" to "can I show I am genuinely in business on my own account?" That is a harder question to answer with paperwork alone, and an easier one to answer if you actually operate as a business.

Seeing where you stand against the post-PGMOL landscape is exactly what our contract checker is for. It assesses your contract across six case law grounded dimensions, including mutuality of obligation and the in-business-on-own-account picture, and returns a probability based result with reasoning for each, rather than the single word CEST gives you. None of this is legal advice. It is built to help you understand your position before HMRC tests it. For a broader look at every tool that goes further than CEST, our CEST alternatives guide maps each one and where it fits.

Frequently asked questions

What did the PGMOL Supreme Court ruling decide? The Supreme Court, in HMRC v PGMOL [2024] UKSC 29, decided that mutuality of obligation and sufficient control can exist within a single engagement, even where there is no obligation between engagements and either side can cancel without penalty. It did not decide that the referees were employees. It remitted that question to the First-tier Tribunal.

Did the Supreme Court rule that the referees were employees? No. That is one of the most common misreadings of the case. The Supreme Court ruled only on whether mutuality of obligation and control were capable of existing within an individual match engagement. The final employment status question was left to the First-tier Tribunal, which later ruled the referees were self-employed.

What did the First-tier Tribunal decide on remittal? In PGMOL v HMRC [2026] UKFTT 654 (TC), released 1 May 2026, the tribunal held that the referees were self-employed, not employees. It pointed to the episodic, standalone nature of each match engagement, the distinction between PGMOL's regulatory or gatekeeping control and true managerial control, and the fact that most referees held full-time employment elsewhere and were not economically dependent on PGMOL. HMRC confirmed it would not appeal.

Does the 2026 tribunal ruling mean mutuality and control no longer matter? No. The Supreme Court's clarification that mutuality and control can exist within a single engagement still stands as the applicable test on those two limbs. What changed the outcome was the tribunal's holistic evaluation of the third limb, being in business on your own account, not a reversal of the Supreme Court's reasoning on mutuality or control.

What should contractors take from PGMOL now that both rulings are final? That the first two limbs of the test, personal service and control, are now easier for HMRC to satisfy, so they carry less defensive weight on their own. But the PGMOL referees still won on the strength of the third limb: genuinely episodic engagements, non-managerial oversight, and no economic dependency. That is where contested cases are decided.

IR35 Verdict helps you understand your IR35 position. It does not provide legal or tax advice. Always consult a qualified contractor accountant before making decisions about your status.